Mario Aguilar

The USS Iowa recently arrived in Los Angeles, completing the last voyage of its storied career. Now the ship will be transformed into a museum. We know what you're thinking: borrrring. Not so! There are plans to create a crazy-sounding, multiplayer game room that recreates the ship's history.

The USS Iowa is a very important ship in naval history. She fought in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters during World War II and served all over the world until she was decommissioned in 1990. Wargaming America—maker of historical MMOGs—is developing a number of interactive elements to recreate this history in the new museum. By far the most interesting of these is the game room we mentioned before. According to the release:

Wargaming is developing a game room on board the ship that will put visitors in Grumman F6F Hellcat warplanes to defend the USS IOWA from attack by Japanese Zeros. There will be 15 stations to defend from.

If we understated this correctly, that means that you and fourteen other people can (virtually) get behind the turret of a Hellcat and protect the ship from enemy planes. Yes, please. Mom! Can we go to the museum with the awesome fighter jet simulator? Finally, the curators of the world are starting to get it: You can get people to do almost anything—including learn—if you turn it into a multiplayer action game. [PR Newswire]